USDA Expands Drought Assistance

Melissa Sandfort

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced $11.8 million in additional financial and technical assistance to help crop and livestock producers in 22 states apply conservation practices that reduce the impacts of drought and improve soil health and productivity. The USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) provides this assistance through its Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program (WHIP) and Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).

Since early summer, USDA has announced a variety of assistance to producers impacted by the drought, including opening conservation acres to emergency haying and grazing, lowering the interest rate for emergency loans, and working with crop insurance companies to provide flexibility to farmers. Just a few weeks ago, USDA announced $16 million in financial and technical assistance to immediately help crop and livestock producers in 19 states cope with the adverse impacts of the historic drought. In July, the Secretary announced USDA would allow producers to modify current EQIP contracts to allow for grazing, livestock watering, and other conservation activities to address drought conditions, and also authorized haying and grazing of WRP easement areas in drought-affected areas where haying and grazing is consistent with conservation of wildlife habitat and wetlands. The announcement expands upon these efforts and brings the total assistance to nearly $28 million.

See the additional NRCS drought assistance received by each state here. Learn more about drought categories here.

Producers and landowners are encouraged to visit the NRCS website or stop by their local NRCS office to find out if they are eligible for this new funding.

Agribusiness, USDA

Needle & Haystack

Melissa Sandfort

When I was younger, my mom would send me out to the garage where our deep-freeze was to get meat to thaw for dinner that night. She’d tell me exactly what she wanted, exactly how it was packaged, and almost exactly where it was in the freezer but for some reason, I could never find it. And I think that’s a trait I inherited from my dad. She on the other hand, could locate it blindfolded and half asleep.

My husband is that way with his truck keys, except he always says, “Where did you move them?” or “Where did you put that paper? I had it laying right here.” (Mind you, I didn’t touch either!)

This sounds a little like a story my grandfather tells about an old tire inner-tube.

Listen to Grandpa explain

Maybe you can find a needle in a haystack, if you look a little harder.

Until we walk again …

Uncategorized

Opposition to California Proposition is Growing

Cindy Zimmerman

The National Corn Growers Association is the latest group to join a broad coalition opposing California’s Proposition 37, which would require labeling of some food products sold in that state that contain genetically engineered ingredients.

“All it’s going to do is add to food costs,” said NCGA president Garry Niemeyer of Illinois. “It is a flawed proposition and its exemptions don’t really make sense for those who support the idea of the ‘right to know.'”

An example of exemptions that make no sense – cow’s milk is exempt but soy milk requires a label. Dairy products, eggs, meat and poultry are all exempt. Fruit juice requires a label, but alcohol made with some of the same GE ingredients is exempt. Food sold in a grocery store requires a label, but the same food sold in a restaurant is exempt.

Listen to my interview with Garry here: NCGA president Garry Niemeyer

At least 60 agricultural organizations are part of the campaign urging Californians to vote No on Prop 37, titled the “California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act.” San Joaquin valley diversified farmer Greg Palla says the initiative would effectively ban the sale of tens of thousands of common grocery products only in California, unless they are relabeled or made with more costly ingredients. “We feel that it’s a very deceptive initiative,” he said, noting that the idea of having to label perfectly safe products “just conflicts with good science.”

Palla says Proposition 37 would have a definite impact outside the state of California, since it would apply to so many retail products that made in other locations. “The impact would be swift and clear,” he said, noting that other states might follow California’s example.

Besides state and national agricultural groups, Prop 37 is being opposed by a broad coalition of ethnic and labor organizations, as well as groups representing scientists, doctors, business, and taxpayers in general. Find out more at NoProp37.com.

Listen to my interview with Greg here: California farmer Greg Palla

Audio, Biotech, politics

USDA Changing Report Release Times in 2013

Cindy Zimmerman

USDA is changing the release time of certain key statistical reports beginning in January 2013.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture today announced that the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) and World Agricultural Outlook Board (WAOB) will begin issuing several major USDA statistical reports at 12:00 p.m. EDT beginning in January 2013. The current USDA release time of 8:30 a.m. EDT will remain in effect until January 1, 2013. USDA statistical reports affected are: World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, Acreage, Crop Production, Grain Stocks, Prospective Plantings, and Small Grains Summary. The time for livestock reports currently released at 3:00 p.m. will not change.

Between June 8 and July 9, 2012, USDA sought public comment on the release times for several major statistical reports in response to changes in market hours by major commodity exchanges. Stakeholders submitted 147 comments through the NASS online response site and via letter and e-mail. You can read those comments here.

Markets, USDA

John Deere’s New Breed of Gator

Cindy Zimmerman

John Deere has a brand new species of Gator that is out to chomp the competition when it comes to speed, power and agility.

“It’s the Gator RSX850i, our first recreational utility vehicle,” said Product Line Marketing Manager Kevin Lund, who introduced the new Gator at the 2012 Farm Progress Show . “With 62 horsepower and 53 mile an hour top speed, four-wheel independent multi-link suspension, it delivers the performance that you need and still has the capability that you expect from a John Deere Gator.”

Lund says utility vehicles have been a part of John Deere’s 175 year history for the past 25 years. “John Deere really started the utility vehicle industry in 1987 with the AMT600,” he said. That evolved over the next few years into the Gator by 1993 and has continued to evolve with new models over the years.

Listen to my interview with Kevin from FPS here: John Deere's Kevin Lund

2012 Farm Progress Show Photo Album

Audio, Farm Progress Show, John Deere

It’s an iPhone World

Melissa Sandfort

Our latest ZimmPoll asked the question, “Do you plan to buy an iPhone 5?”

Our poll results: 20% said yes, upgrade my old iPhone; 4% said yes, get first iPhone; 24% said no, I’m Android; 32% said no, keep old iPhone; and 21% said they don’t want a smartphone.

Our new ZimmPoll is now live and asks the question, “Have high fuel prices had an impact on your farm/business?” We’ve seen fuel prices go up quite a bit lately so we want to know – is it impacting your daily farm/business? What do you think?

ZimmPoll is sponsored by Rhea+Kaiser, a full-service advertising/public relations agency.

Technology, ZimmPoll

Call from the Combine for Farm Bill Now

Cindy Zimmerman

Congress is back in session for a couple of days this week, but all indications are that no action will be taken on a farm bill at this point before the current bill expires.

Knowing how fluid the situation in Washington can be, that’s no reason to give up hope yet and National Corn Growers Association president Garry Niemeyer says they are urging farmers to call Congress from their combines to make their voices heard. “This being Farm Safety Week, pull your combine over and shut it down, but call your congressman,” Garry said. “Tell them exactly what you think. That’s what we need.”

Garry says they are completely frustrated by the lack of action on a farm bill in the House. “This is just ridiculous,” he said. “We have big problems out here and (members of) Congress have really not done their job.”

Go to FarmBillNow.com for more information about contacting your congressional representative.

Listen to Garry’s comments here: NCGA president Garry Niemeyer

Audio, Corn, Farm Bill, Farming, NCGA

XS, Inc Testing AgVeritas on New Network Infrastructure

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast 365Let’s talk big data and precision agriculture in this week’s program. Listen in on a conversation I just had with Bill Barton, Principal, XS, Inc. and Timothy P. Carroll, Sr. Network Engineer. XS, Inc. just announced a major upgrade to their storage area network (SAN) infrastructure.

As a drought in the Midwest raises food prices, farming efficiency and getting the most from farm lands has become more essential than ever. XS, Inc is known in the food and agriculture industry for its ability to provide internet-based applications to help its agricultural clients drive efficiency and business value within their own organizations. To keep those online applications up and running, XS, Inc. selected Dell Compellent storage arrays, PowerEdge servers, PowerVault disk storage, and Latitude laptops. Since XS, Inc. moved to Dell Compellent this year, the company has maintained 99.999 percent storage availability to support the company’s rapid growth

This move comes in a timely fashion to support a new service offering, AgVeritas software.

XS, Inc. is the first agricultural SaaS provider with commercially accessible spatial statistics software, AgVeritasTM, transforming a traditionally expensive and time-consuming process to a highly available solution for agricultural clients. AgVeritas analyzes soil variability, elevation, drainage and the amount of sunlight and provides customers with the information they need to effectively manage their field. The company also collects more point of sale transaction data than any other service provider, providing its largely agricultural customers with insight and analytics to make educated business decisions on where and what to plant to optimize available farm land. The Dell infrastructure is critical to supporting XS, Inc.’s big data applications due to its flexibility and reliability.

So, what does all this mean? That’s what we talk about in this week’s ZimmCast. Today’s farmer has a real need for comprehensive information right now, right where he is, so he can make important farm management decisions. I was very intrigued by the idea of “spatial statistics” and Tim explains that in our conversation. From my perspective AgVeritas is once again showing the XS, Inc. is ahead of the curve. AgVeritas is currently in field trials and should be ready for prime time by first quarter 2013.

BTW. ZimmComm is about to go through a major upgrade of all our behind the scenes infrastructure which should be complete by mid November.

Listen to this week’s ZimmCast here: XS, Inc. & AgVeritas

Watch a video about AgVeritas:

Thanks to our ZimmCast sponsors, GROWMARK, locally owned, globally strong and Monsanto, Roundup Ready Plus, for their support.

The ZimmCast is the official weekly podcast of AgWired. Subscribe so you can listen when and where you want. Just go to our Subscribe page.

Agribusiness, Audio, Precision Agriculture, ZimmCast

No Rain for BASF Great Grower Kip Cullers

Cindy Zimmerman

Even a Great Grower needs a little help from above to end up with a great crop to harvest, but Southwest Missouri farmer Kip Cullers says they got virtually no rain this season, resulting in yields that are “dismal at best.”

When we talked to Kip back in April for the BASF Crop Protection Great Growers series, he was thrilled with how quickly planting had progressed and how fast the corn was emerging. But the weather rapidly took a turn for the worse after that time. “It hadn’t rained in Southwest Missouri since the first of April until last weekend,” he said. “It’s so hard to overcome no help from Mother Nature.”

The World Champion Soybean Grower says despite the lack of rainfall, they did have good luck controlling weeds this season. “Our herbicides this year worked really well,” he said. “We went back to more pre-emerge herbicides versus going over the top with generic glyphosate and have gotten along a lot better doing that.” Kip says this is the second year they have used that strategy.

Even though this is the second year Kip has faced weather challenges, he’s not looking to change much for 2013. “”Surely we won’t have three years of this in a row!,” he said. “There’s no reason to change a program because of one or two bad years because putting on fungicides and insecticides and taking care of your weeds does pay big dividends if it just rains some.”

We caught Kip this week as he was leaving the Farm Science Review in Ohio and heading to catch a flight to Sao Paulo. With the U.S. crop lowered due to weather this year, Kip says the South American crop is more important than ever. “We need Brazil to raise a big crop just because we’ve created all this demand,” he said. “We need to come through with our end of the bargain and supply all that.”

Kip, pictured here with his wife Michelle at the 2012 Commodity Classic, is a big believer in BASF Headline fungicide for plant health and knows it makes a difference when plants are stressed. “It’s not a miracle drug, but it sure will help you through some tough times,” he said, but noted that when there’s no rain at all, the best help is to “just do a lot more praying.”

Listen to an interview with Kip here: BASF Great Grower Kip Cullers

Audio, BASF

Milk Unleashed Educates Moms

Melissa Sandfort

Milk Unleashed has launched! It’s a campaign to educate moms on the importance of dairy, and offer easy ways to incorporate more milk into their families’ diets with shelf safe milk. It’s sponsored by Tetra Pak, makers of shelf safe cartons for milk, juice, soup, broth and other products.

Shelf safe milk is Grade A fluid milk that requires no refrigeration until the package is opened, thanks to ultra pasteurization and the special Tetra Pak carton. This eco-friendly packaging preserves all the wholesome goodness of milk and helps kids get the vitamins and nutrients of milk anytime, anywhere.

Agribusiness, Dairy